App Smart | Mobile Blogging

AS I write this column, I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop. And instead of using my traditional computer setup, I’m writing on an Internet-connected iPad with blogging apps.

Blogging, it is clear, has come to mobile computing.

The WordPress app is my favorite for mobile blogging. Available free on iOS and Android, its design is relatively simple but effective for creating posts peppered with images and links. It’s also good for distraction-free writing, with little to interrupt you as you work.

When you load it, you have to log into a WordPress account, which is free. From the main interface, you can reach blogs you have already set up or start a new one. Once you are in your blog, writing a new post is as easy as clicking on the plus icon. A new page for entering text opens, with sections for the post’s title and the body text.

As you type, you can select words and use formatting controls to make them bold or italic, or you can turn them into links to other websites. To add a photo or image from your device’s archive, tap on the picture icon. You can also preview what your post will look like when it is published online through the eyeball icon. It then takes just a few taps to tag your post with keywords and to publish it.

This app does have limitations — particularly on iOS. In the iOS edition, editing your post’s format inserts code into the text, which may be disconcerting if you’re not used to HTML. The app is also only for posting to WordPress blogs.

The Blogsy app, $5 for iPads, is a great alternative. You can write blog posts that are compatible with WordPress, but you can also post blog articles to other popular blogging platforms like Tumblr and Blogger.

Blogsy feels more feature-rich than WordPress, and offers more of the “what you see is what you get” experience of typing into a desktop publishing program like Microsoft Word. When you make a word bold, for example, you see it bold on the screen right away. The app also lets you drag photos and videos from your device’s archive or from online services like Flickr and YouTube, and drop them in just the right place in your post.

There are familiar dropdown menus for design choices like font and text size. There is even a Save icon, to reassure yourself that your draft has been saved if you want to work on it again before publishing.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

To get to the HTML code that makes your blog post work, tap the little “<>” icon. This makes it easy to change parameters like the size of images and alignment of text. If you’re clever, you can also use this feature to learn the relevant code: Simply edit the post in the main view, then flip to see the code.

All these features make Blogsy fun to use, but I find it a little more distracting than a simple empty page. Its interface also has a few quirks, and it will take a while to learn where all the controls are in the dropdown and pop-up menus.

If Blogsy’s busy interface isn’t to your taste, you may like Byword, a $5 iOS app with a spartan design. Its basic function is as a text-editing app, but you can also use it to post to your Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress and other accounts — though to use this feature you have to pay another $5 for an in-app upgrade.

Blogger (iOS and Android) and Tumblr (iOS and Android) are alternative blog writing apps that post only to those specific blogging platforms. The apps work perfectly well, but I find them too restrictive. Your mileage may vary, of course, and the apps are free, so there is no harm in trying them.

Finally, mobile bloggers often need to keep track of many web pages to link to in their posts. I find the Pocket app, by Read It Later, useful for this. It offers clever bookmark storage for website addresses and videos or other material I have found in other apps like Twitter. Learning how to use it doesn’t take long, and it is free for iOS and Android.

The joy of these apps is their mobility. Have a story to tell and don’t want to wait until you get to your home computer? Now you don’t have to.

Facebook has upgraded its Windows Phone Messenger app to add features previously available only for iOS and Android. You can create friend groups, and it offers a new, speedier instant-share feature for photos. The app is free.

A version of this article appears in print on June 12, 2014, on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Mobile Blogging Options Simplify Storytelling on the Go. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe